Sundance Responses

“BARKING WATER” writer-director, Sterlin Harjo

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 2:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] I knew before we began making Barking Water that I wanted to try something different. The story is about an older couple who has had a very tumultuous relationship for the past 40 years. The woman, Irene, comes to the man, Frankie, on his deathbed and agrees to take him from the hospital and get him home. The problem, of course, is that Frankie is dying, so the film explores their relationship as she tries to get him home to see his daughter before he dies. Under the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“VICTORIA DAY” writer-director, David Bezmozgis

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] I wrote the first draft of Victoria Day in 2001 before the existence of YouTube or the invention of the iPod. So, Victoria Day in its conception and execution wasn’t influenced by these things. But even if I were to conceive of it anew today, the story would take the same shape, simply because I don’t believe that the effect I hope to achieve — namely an emotional effect — can be achieved any other way. In my experience, the kinds of stories that I’ve seen told on […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“COLD SOULS” writer-director, Sophie Barthes

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I still believe that watching a film should be a collective experience in the darkness of a movie theater, with the viewer floating in a mental state somewhere between consciousness and sleep. I feel that filmmaking as a creative process and as a medium is very close to the process of dreaming. A film is an association of images outside of our control interacting with our memories and emotions. So by replacing the big screen with miniature devices, we’re losing an aspect of […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“I SAW YOU CRYING” Frontier section artist spotlight: Maria Marshall

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 5:30 pm — Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City] As an artist I am at liberty to use everything as an influence to tell the story. I have made a three-minute wonder that was entirely filmed on a mobile phone. A series of three-minute films were commissioned by the British television stationChannel 4, and the films aired before the 7:00 p.m. news. I discovered early on how to be true to materials, and this awareness is reflected in my work. The Internet and YouTube are sources for information at our fingertips. I am, however, very […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“AMREEKA” writer-director, Cherien Dabis

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 12:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] I didn’t respond to the changes in the way people are beginning to view cinema today. My story development process, which began back in 2003, was very much influenced by my own personal experience and my need for authenticity, especially in light of the political issues that rose to the forefront after 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq. From the start I knew that I wanted to craft a universal story and imbue it with humor so that it was accessible and relatable to a mass audience, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“THE QUEEN AND I” director, Nahid Persson Sarvestani

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 6:15 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City] As a documentary filmmaker I am always telling a story, painting a picture of a reality that to some may be disturbing, to others offensive, but hopefully always eye-opening and informative. As such it will always be the content, the core and the soul of the film that is the driving force behind my creative process. The technological aspects and various formats are secondary. My latest doc The Queen and I is a simple story marked by extraordinary events. Whether my films are screened on iPods, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY” director, Michael O. Scott

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] Over the Hills and Far Away is a piece of true magical realism. A family struggles to cope with their son’s autism. In an act of inspiration and desperation combined, they travel to Mongolia and journey through the country on horseback in search of mysterious shamans who they believe can heal their son. It’s hard to believe that this is a documentary and not a dramatic narrative. It’s a filmmaker’s dream to be able to work with such material. So for me it wasn’t a question of finding […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 17, 2009 Sundance Responses
“GRACE” writer-director, Paul Solet

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 11:59 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The factor affecting cinema today most relevant to Grace is the prevalence of the filmmaking community’s faith in the shortcut. There’s an idea that we can make movies by checklist, that the way to write a successful script is by formula, and the way to make a successful film is by gimmickry or spectacle — that we just need to get in front of a camera and our computers will figure out the rest later. With Grace, we resisted that and put total faith in footwork. We just […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009 Sundance Responses
“REPORTER” director, Eric Metzgar

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 9:30 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] With Reporter (and my other films), I have done my best to ignore and avoid the modern forces that encourage the shrinking (and consequent speeding up) of cinematic storytelling. I just don’t see the good in trying to satiate the racing human mind and its desperate and diminishing attention span. I try instead to suffuse my films with the qualities of life and art that I most cherish but seem increasingly endangered: subtlety, silence, stillness, tenderness, sincerity and a spaciousness that allows the viewer (hopefully) to experience some […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009 Sundance Responses
“LYMELIFE” co-writer-director, Derick Martini

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 9:00 pm — Screening Room, Sundance Resort] Due to the daunting forces affecting independent cinema today, the tragedy that has become specialty distributors’ monumental struggle to find audiences, my instinct while directing Lymelife was to constantly push the envelope in every single scene we shot. If that meant tossing my written words out the window, so be it. I was determined to deliver a brutally honest and unsentimental depiction of an American family going through crisis in the late ’70s, a time of emotional and economic change which turns out to be relevant today. I […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009 Sundance Responses

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